Bruce Lee

Accomplished Martial Artist and Athlete:

Accomplished Martial Artist and Athlete:

Just consider some of the things that no one else had ever done before. Until he came along that is:

• Lee performed 50 reps of one-arm chin-ups.
• Lee could take in one arm a 75 lb barbell from a standing position with the barbell held flush against his chest and slowly stick his arms out locking them, holding the barbell there for 20 seconds.
• Lee could thrust his fingers through unopened (steel) cans of Coca-Cola.
• Lee could break wooden boards 6 inches (15 cm) thick.

He developed his own unique and effective fighting style, known as Jeet Kune Do, which is still taught today. It is meant to be the style of no style and exist outside of the limits of traditional martial arts. He used it against many an opponent. Here’s just one of his many amazing fight stories:

In 1962, Lee knocked out Uechi, a Japanese black belt, in 11 seconds in a 1962 Full-Contact match in Seattle. The time keeper had this to say: “The karate man arrived in his gi, complete with black belt, while Bruce showed up in his street clothes and simply took off his shoes. The fight lasted exactly 11 seconds–I know because I was the time keeper—and Bruce had hit the guy something like 15 times and kicked him once. I thought he’d killed him.” The fight ended by Bruce knocking Uechi the length of the gymnasium. (source:wikipedia)

Here’s his famous one inch punch, with some bonus athletic feats at the start.

To be this amazing of an athlete and competitor, it’s no wonder he was also a nutrition expert of sorts. He ate 4 to 5 meals spread out during the day, ate tons of fruit and vegetables (usually fresh, raw, or juiced), and avoided processed foods, starches, dairy, and anything else that would slow him down. He was all for the competitive edge, and this included his training too. He would run sprints, long distance, and varied pace routines everyday, rock the abs while watching TV, weight train, flex and stretch to the max, jump rope, and practice, practice, practice his art.

The Mind of the Dragon:

Bruce was known to have a library of over 2,500 books. His personal eclectic philosophy combined elements Taoism, Buddhism, Jiddu Krishnamurti-school, and many others. He claimed no belief in god but professed a spiritual and superbly well-demonstrated meditative and focused life. His ideas were one with his every movement, and his every movement apparently followed from his beliefs. A few quotes serve to give us a glimpse into the mind of the dragon, may he rest in peace:

“Be formless… shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend…”

“All kind of knowledge, eventually becomes self knowledge”

“As you think, so shall you become.”

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

“Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.”

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”

That dragon sure knew how to thrive… Indeed, he was also an actor and family man, and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time Magazine!

Yes, I know corrosivity is not a word as far as you’ve heard. It is a novel combination of corrosive and acidity to me. Because I didn’t want to write ‘an ocean of acidity’ — it’s not right, not P.C., err, I mean it’s not P.H.! (Gee…) Simply equip and tip in a ton of tums to neutralize the acidic H-2-O blip; not the right video-clip. So, corrosivity it is…

And let’s get it clear: I’m here not to neutralize the seas by puffin’ calcium into the breeze. Creating a ton of anything is hard work for me, being a crab astrologically. So, what to do in a corrosive ocean? What’s the potion?

I see my buddy Pisces afloat and adrift, aloft and aloof in a fantasy of idea thrift. I know not to follow so as not to get lost. And I also can’t abandon my aqueous ship there, boss. The depths being so well-equipped to my elusive style of image-shift.

And a playful warping of the story verbosely is not the essence of this poetic trip. So I digress — unless… No. The real question is not how to rhyme this session, but how to stay solid in a corrosive ocean where you know-not-what-means-stolid.

When you live underwater, the world is heavy. Ideas are tempting but can drag you down fishy rabbit-holes quick. Mystery and deception, image and self-defense protection not a problem for the clawed-crawling-shelled-crusty creatures like me-myself and a few other watery-signed-types on the shelf. But with an ocean of emotive ideas at my finger-claw-tips, and the schools of benign-looking hook-hidden pips, the challenge remains to open-shell with the proper currents and down comrades at my hip.

Open too much and pure-essence is leaked.
Too little and neurotic claws begin to auto-collapse on the allied-peeps.

So, to flow or to swim is the question to let sink in. To roll in the under-tow or no?

And the best way for us, these crustaceans, not-to-crack, is to never let this very question stab us in the back.

First buddhism-related post in quite a while. This one a speech from one of my favorite wise people about progressing along the path of spiritual-development. What does it take to grow? Do we need guides along the way? Certainly it doesn’t hurt to be pushed once in a while. I love the story here and how it demonstrates the value of troublemakers in our lives.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Life is resistant to entropy. Survival of the species is genetic. And selfish self-preservation is the rule. Carried out over generations, species preserve themselves. And out of humans new forms of life are springing: tools and artificial intelligence that may choose to preserve themselves at some point and push outward into the universe, saturating the whole of it with consciousness.

And although it may end up as strange and alien life, the universe will live. This is extropy, the concept that life can get around entropy visa-vi genetic and cultural heritage, and that it will continue to expand from the cradle of Earthly human intelligence.

Yep. We’re pretty key, alright, us humans. Pretty damn key…

But let’s keep some of this alive too, eh?

It’s just not good to burn up your own cradle, no matter how much you believe you have grown.

Wu-wei is the principle of non-action. It is an integral part of Taoist philosophy and is a non-dualistic form of action; by choosing to not act, the Tao, or energy of the cosmos, flows unimpeded through you. This is a good state to be in. And this is why wu-wei is so important. One can be both true to his or her own nature and allow things to balance out accordingly, in their own time. This state of effortless equilibrium aligns the self with everything there is and hence opens pathways to new learning and joy.

It’s all newness. It’s all new.
Every letter of this sentence.
Every breath inhaled – what of any of this has happened before?

And is this significant?
Yes. But only when lived as newness.

When newness itself is lived it all gains meaning;
it all has to be new, because nothing is allowed to be old.
And yet our all-too-powerful brains jump to nonexistent past and future times,
all unreal, jumping simply because they can.

Whatever you have to do, make it real,
cause there’s no time but this one – and it’s never happened before.
And as soon as it’s over,
it didn’t.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it:

( Individually )

If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

( Equitably )

The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness.
You have to catch it yourself.

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

( Absolutely )

He is able who thinks he is able.

( Increasingly )

A jug fills drop by drop.

~ Siddhārtha Gautama ~

Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.
— Freeman Dyson

We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.
— Vernor Vinge

Self-organization and extropy are themselves fundamental principles of the physical universe, to the extent that the laws of physics themselves may have developed through a process of self-organization.
— Lee Smolin

The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. The ongoing expansion of our future superintelligence will then require moving out into the rest of the universe, where we may engineer new universes.
— Ray Kurzweil

Technology expands data by 66% per year, overwhelming the growth rates of any natural source.  Compared to other planets in the neighborhood, or to the dumb material drifting in space beyond, a thick blanket of learning and self-organized information surround this orb.
— Kevin Kelly

The universe might end in intelligent life (rather than as either a ball of fire or as scattered ice). Not life as we know it, but life that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole, just as life on Earth has acquired the ability to shape the land, the sea, and the atmosphere.
— James N. Gardner

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out … and the water seems inviting.
— Carl Sagan

Dubious readers must see: reapplying entropy.

A way of unwalking. A machine of unworking.
A word that is mute, a note that is deaf.
A house that un-houses. An act that itself undoes.
The mind which unminds.

It’s a deeper level of introspection
that is needed
for to know oneself, is to know all others
and to know oneself completely
is to know all others completely too.

This space
inside
is full of willpower and life
and it directs your soul-power and influence
your soul-power
known by many other names, truth
belongs to you
but you have to claim it
first
you have to claim it
and then never force it
to do your bidding.

Why because when it’s *your* bidding
it is not ours
but when it’s us
and ours
then it *means* something
and in an absurd kind of way
after that, the meaning
the answer, eludes me.